Check out using ffprobe instead of ffmpeg. It doesn't try to play the video and you can pick an output format that suits you. 
$ ffprobe -i http://bennugd-vlc.googlecode.com/files/sintel_trailer-48
+0p.mp4 -show_streams -print_format csv 2>/dev/null
stream,0,h264,H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10,video,1/48,avc
+1,0x31637661,854,480,2,N/A,N/A,yuv420p,30,N/A,1,4,N/A,24/1,24/1,1/24,
+0.000000,52.208333,537875,1253,N/A,N/A,1970-01-01 00:00:00,und,VideoH
+andler
stream,1,aac,Advanced Audio Coding,audio,1/48000,mp4a,0x6134706d,s16,4
+8000,2,0,N/A,0/0,0/0,1/48000,0.000000,51.946667,126694,2435,N/A,N/A,1
+970-01-01 00:00:00,und,SoundHandler

[download]

In reply to Re: Get size and bitrate of video with perl and ffmpeg by zengargoyle
in thread Get size and bitrate of video with perl and ffmpeg by lancer

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.